Sailing Returns to Limelight at NE Tourney

It’s probably wise to refrain from drawing conclusions when the Harvard sailing team fails to impress in mid-season regattas. Recent undistinguished finishes failed to foretell the team’s success this weekend, as the No. 12 Crimson women dominated the New England championships and two of its freshmen showed themselves to be among the best in the nation.

“We’re saying we’re still here and we’re still the best team, at least in New England, and we’ll be a competitor in nationals,” senior Genny Tulloch said about the weekend’s women’s racing.

Harvard came through in the clutch, and it now faces another string of clutch weekends that will determine the Crimson’s representation in the national co-ed fleet and team racing championships.

“We still have a lot of things to go over and get down. I think we can do it,” senior Daphne Lyman said. “We have the potential to do really well in New Englands and nationals. We just have to keep our focus.”

WOMEN

The women’s team sailed its opponents out of the water at the Reed Trophy, held at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy this weekend. Five Harvard sailors piloted Flying Junior and 420-class dinghies through fair breeze and heavy rain, as the Crimson won the New England women’s championship and qualified for ICSA nationals, to be held June 1-3 in Austin, Tex. With 96 total points, Harvard edged by its opposition, as runners-up Yale finished with 103.

“We just dominated everybody on Saturday and had to hold off on Sunday,” Tulloch said. “We were very much on the defensive against Yale, our big rival.”

Harvard entered the final set up two points on the Bulldogs, but beat them in both divisions for the win. Sophomore Emily Simon and junior Jessica Baker split time crewing for Tulloch, who set a course for first in the A-division. Tulloch, Simon, and Baker won their division by a wide margin, with 41 points to Yale’s 51. The A-division won four of 10 races and finished second in three more.

“We have two really good tall crews we trained over the last two weeks, we had a good breeze we got to sail with, and we kicked butt—it was good,” Tulloch said.

Junior captain Sloan Devlin and alternating sophomore crews Christina Dahlman and Cassandra Niemi barely missed the mark, trailing Yale by two points on Saturday but slipping Sunday to finish third in the B-division.

The B-division also recorded four race wins, but first- or second-place finishes in the final three races allowed Dartmouth to edge out Harvard for second in the division.

“It definitely makes the best kind of statement in terms of our ability to perhaps win women’s nationals,” Devlin said. “We’re very happy to have put our best foot forward in the last regatta of the season before nationals.”

CO-ED

Harvard’s youngest stars made a favorable showing against the nation’s best frosh, winning the New England single-crew freshman championship Priddy Trophy, held at MIT Saturday and Sunday.

Kyle Kovacs and Elyse Dolbec coped with Boston’s unpredictable and transitory weather in the regatta, as winds ranged from dead calm to 30-knot gusts and competitors were doused with heavy rain. Despite the tribulations, Kovacs and Dolbec cruised to first, with 67 points to second-place Tufts’ 83. The duo won four of 17 races and finished in the top five in 13.

The Crimson’s regatta-winning ways were not uniform, however, as its top No. 8 co-ed upperclassmen finished fourth in the Thompson Trophy, a fleet-racing intersectional at Connecticut College. As 18 teams sailed 17 races, Harvard finished fourth—though only two points out of third place and 15 out of second—by the score of its B-division.

“This was the last big intersectional prior to our New England qualifiers for nationals. We went in there knowing that it didn’t count for anything,” sophomore skipper Clay Johnson said. “But we wanted to go out and have a good performance.”

Johnson left little room for doubt in the B-division, as he and crews Lyman and sophomore Kristen Lynch won the division with 81 points to runner-up South Florida’s 131. After breaking down in the second race, the B-division maintained consistency, finishing out of the top 10 only once and winning four.

“I was really excited with the way I sailed. I won my division—it doesn’t get much better than that,” Johnson said.

Junior captain Vince Porter skippered the A-division, crewed by junior Ruth Schlitz and sophomore Matt Knowles, to 14th place. In contrast, the A-division only cracked the top 10 for five races in the regatta.

“We all know Vince is a great sailor. He’s definitely carried the team before, in the past, and it’s good to get it out of his system before nationals,” Johnson said. “Everyone has one off weekend.”

Additionally, the Crimson finished sixth of eight teams in the Metro Series 5, hosted by Harvard and Brandeis on Saturday. In finicky winds, Harvard’s A-division of sophomore Robby McIntosh and freshman Alicia Harley took seventh, while the B-division of sophomore Marion Guillaume and freshman Katie Beck finished sixth.

—Staff writer Samuel C. Scott can be reached at sscott@fas.harvard.edu.